I finished "Infinite Jest" sort of kind of yesterday.

[vixengrl]

I don't think this is the kind of book one actually finishes. It's more like you've read it to the end, have some very definite ideas, and need a re-read or so before you actually can be said to grasp all that you've read. And then maybe you re-read it once more because you want to, just to be sure.

I come away with some opinions and some questions. I don't know how many other people visiting this forum have tried ths one on, but it's worth it. David Foster Wallace is totally a talent who erased his map too soon. I think his "map" had directions to places worthwhile to know.

I'm going to post some odd ideas I sort of suspect, but I don't want them to be thought of as spoilers, so I'm just going to have them out and if anyone wants to jump on, they can, but if you're still reading it or haven't yet, you don't have to get info you don't want.


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Part of me doesn't think Joelle was really shitting Gately when she said that the real reason she wears the veil is because she's too ridiculously beautiful to actually be seen. It doesn't matter if that's actually true, so much as she believes it is. The involved backstory of Joelle's deformation was told by a third party who got Orin right, and outlined the Kentucky family of one exceptionally pretty personage, but get the name of that person utterly wrong at the end. So if this person doesn't really know Madame Psychosis' real name, can that witness be trusted to have told the actual story?

Or is that person telling a story they heard from someone, somewhere? And I think part of the disfunction of the Van Dyne clan is true, because Joelle is a wreck. But when she was checked into treatment, the idea that a nurse peeked under her veil and fast-tracked her into treatment suggests to me that it wasn't because she was deformed that she was considered a great risk--but because she wasn't Because she was "deluded". She was still physically perfect, but---something inside of her felt deformed. And Orin left her because of her family business, and she felt responsible for both her mother's and JOI's suicides, and that and her father's fatal attraction was enough to think herself a horrific mess, even though she was blameless. And of course, she had to have at least a glimmer of an idea, as a film student herself, what "the Entertainment" was about.

I don't necessarily feel much for Hal, even though he's probably the person who all of this mess was about--Gately is the real hero in a way, because we uncover how his misteps are tied up in the drama of the Quebecois Separatists mission to use the interlace cartridge of "The Entertainment", even though he himself is just a small-time theif and muscle-bound pill-head. Maybe this is because I never knew anyone of Hal's privelege, but I kind of know people like Gately. The bits about Boston AA and the denizens of Ennett House are fascinating.

Some things are beyond credibility for me, though. Marathe is an angaging charater, until he describes how he was saved by the love of his skull-less wife. Then he seems fake, like some point that didn't need to be made. Fine. He is seducing a woman who was chronically depressed and feeling alive for the first time by trying a Substance--and is he promising her a finale by introducing her, and maybe himself, to the pschic immolation of the "entertainment"? If he wants to finance his wife's continued vegetation, shouldn't he also want to be there? And if his accidental companion finds her happiness in Kahlua, why not leave her to it? This part was alive for me, but a little bit, "Fail" also.

Interlace reminds me a lot of Netflix. I think Orin was not as shocked about Hal's recollection of JOI's suicide as he might have been, even if he kept a wide berth of the family's doings. I think Avril was not as big a slut as her sons suspected, but her standoffish passive-aggressive ways let them think the worst. Also, Mario wasn't really so much retarded as disabled, but actually, anytime the author tried to show what Mario was thinking, it actually wasn't uninsightful. Just awkward, like his whole life might have been awkward. And he probably was CT's son. Which was why Avril was so especially solicitous towards him and never talked down to him. Because he was especially her family. And his disabilities felt to her like they were her sin.

JOI never could have made anything like "the Entertainment" except if he were sober. Sobriety was actually his sin. Joelle is conscious of waking the "devil" inside of James Incandenza and letting him do his cinematic worst. His other works appear to have been schlock, although I would love to see Tarantino do something like "Blood Sister". Which has a character with burns from freebasing--but if JOI liked to used Joelle, and she was by then scarred, wouldn't he have used her? The book doesn't allow as much. And wasn't her drug of choice free-base coke? Unless, unless--

She stole her backstory from the other actress JOI used to augment her already horrible tale.

Somehow I kind of want a happy ending where Gately is doing better and Joelle returns to his side. In a traditional story, that could even happen. And Hal regains his voice, and Orin gets his dues paid. Wallace gives us none of this. It's a curiously late 20th century postmodern thing. I liked it, and even though it was awfully long, wanted more. Which might be a side effecdt of entertainment itself, nu?

[Jim__]

1. I'm re-reading Infinite Jest. *** SPOILERS ***

It's been over a year since my previous read, so I can't provide a lot of feedback on your insights - I'll post again after thinking more about them. Your take on Joelle is interesting and not one that I'd thought of. I'll have to keep that in mind as I continue with the book.

One of the things about Wallace is that he often talked about what he was trying to communicate through his writing, but actually achieving this was a struggle; and even when he thought he was successful, readers would still misunderstand him - most reviewers took Infinitew Jest to be riotously funny.

I'm re-reading the book mostly because throughout my original reading, I was looking forward to seeing what had happened to Hal that led to his situation as described in the first chapter. The obvious answer of course is that he took Pemulis' DMT and completely lost the ability to communicate with the outside world. But the book never clarifies this.

But Hal's inability to communicate, maybe complicated through the use of drugs, seems to be a central theme of the book. On the second reading, the image that struck me the most from the first chapter is the image of Hal being carried into the hospital. The opening chapter ends with Hal lying face down on his stomach in the hospital. The book ends (IIRC) with Gately in the hospital, and back on demerol, and, in his mind, lying on his back on the beach - his sitaution at the beginning of his original recovery. On my second reading, I'm looking for a stronger connection (stronger than I found on my first reading) between Hal and Gately.

Joelle and the UHID (sp) movement seem to cover another aspect of communication. Voluntarily ceasing to communicate honestly about difficulties in the world. Deliberately hiding your troubles from the world so that you can, in some way, be accepted.

Of course, the whole idea of a film that would lead to the ecstatic deaths of any viewers, is also telling us something about communication and entertainment. Are people overwhelmed by the film because of its entertainment value, or because of its insights into life? Is such a film a success? And, the ironic use intended for this film by the separatists, tells us something, I believe, of the ultimate frustration of artists.

There's so much in this book. I wanted to discuss this on DU. I'll have to think some more about what you said and I'll probably post here again.

Thanks for starting this thread.

[vixengrl]

2. Toward the end of the book, there's a bit of weirdness re:

Hal and Gately. Gately in his wounded state is receiving "ghost words" that seem to possibly be ransacked from Hal's dictionary-enhanced vocabulary, and he gets a visit from Himself's ghost. Why does Gately get a visit, and Hal not? Is it because Gately is more open, and Hal still something of a mystery to his father's ghost?

What strikes me about the character of Hal is that he is quite different from Shakespeare's Prince Hal--he isn't easy with words, and he isn't a rebel. At all. He's engaged in a sport I don't think he likes much, which he simply excels at because he's gifted and he's supposed to. Even the act of smoking Bob shows his almost fetishistic attempts to hide what he's doing and not disappoint. His nature is to try and maintain equilibrium--maybe like a counterbalance to expectations put on him, maybe the formative moment of his life wasn't eating the nasty fungus but watching The Moms' freak-out reaction to it.

In a way, I wonder if his use of drugs wasn't in emulation of his father's alcoholism--a way he tries to emulate his father in deed, in a way that he never connected to him in words. And just like his father didn't recognize that Hal was trying his heart out in "deeds", the son doesn't recognize that this isn't the best way to necessarily try and capitulate to his fathers' legacy. When the DMT renders Hal speechless and apparently crazed, there is something very sensible still in his thoughts. (Again, to the bits of the book unwritten, does Hal find himself hospitalized alongside our BIM outside the novel's time?)

But I find correlations of Gately to Jim--both are described as big men--Gately as just huge, Jim as freakishly tall. Both men reflect on their mothers--Jim's mother was abused, as was Gately's. Both mothers were passive. Gately's was a drunk. I find I wish Wallace gave a just a bit more of a flashback on Jim's memories of his mother--because I think he sought a certain kind of figure both in Avril and Joelle. An undeniable strong femininity, with a fragile side.... And I think both are more pulled along by life--and act from their addictions.

While, Hal actually is self-guided. He's just immature and can't relate to his life (which has a lot to do with smacking about fuzzy balls with a net strung inside a graphite frame) unless he's unsober enough to not think about the game. His substance use is to facilitate his "being normal", but it's hard to say that JOI or Gately are any more normal because of their respective addictions. Sober, Jim directs the Entertainment, and sober, Gately becomes entangled with the unlucky Madame Psychosis. Sobriety is no escape from tragedy for them--

but the book also supposes Hal was trying to kick before sampling the DMT, it seemed.

It's weird--the entertainment is fatal bliss, the chronic depressive finds happiness in Kahlua, truth is rewarded with tragedy, and the addicts sometimes seem to need their crutches. As a man without legs needs a chair? The way the deformed take on a strength, and the Wheelchair assassins seem deadly nd committed because of their failings, not despite them?

It seems we are confronted with a world where brokenness and the search for relief are the human condition. Nobility is embracing the brokenness and delaying relief--but inevitably......

It's not really a funny work. At times it's downright pessimistic.

[pitohui]

3. wonderful book hard for me to talk about

i like how you say "i wish he had said more about this" or that...i find there's a compulsiveness to reading the book and solving the different threads and mysteries, i believe that he was trying to create the experience of addiction as a book, a book you can't put down (just like the video you can't look away from), in fact, for a long time, for me, it WAS the book you can't put down

we lost a great one when we lost wallace, that is for sure, he left us w. this hunger for more

[Jim__]

4. I wouldn't describe Hal as crazed, even during his college interview.

In the opening chapter of the book, Hal is the narrator and his narration is eloquent:

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in university Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

I am in here.

Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportscoats and half-Windsors across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona afternoon. These are three deans - of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs. I do not know which face belongs to whom.

I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I've been coached to err on the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression or smile.

...

"... wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed ...

"I am in here."

He's very aware of what is going on and of his state. But, what you say about his tennis is interesting. Hal's life is dedicated to playing tennis, and he competes against the same people that he socializes with. After completion of the day's competiton, Hal sneaks off into a sub-basement and smokes pot in total isolation. Then, he re-emerges to socialize with his competitors. I agree, smoking pot is not a type of rebellion in Hal. Hal's life is fractured into disconnected bits. Smoking pot helps him to hold things together.

As you say, Hal was trying to stop using drugs. Maybe he did and that leads to his fracturing.

During Hal's interview, they bring up a list of his essays, Neoclassical Assumptions in Contemporary Prescriptive Grammar, The Implications of Post-Fourier Transformations for a Holographically Mimetic Cinema, ..., A Man Who Began to Suspect He Was Made of Glass, Tertiary Symbolism in Justinian Erotica. These sound like scholarly essays, like Hal is a serious thinker. Out of all the essay titles, the one that stands out as different to me is A Man Who Began to Suspect He Was Made of Glass. Hal? Did Hal stop smoking pot and break into pieces?

I'm also thinking that a big connection between Hal and Gately is Joelle. Orin's girlfriend, JOI's star, Gately's helper. Either I don't remember, or didn't get the part about JOI's ghost visiting Gately. I'll watch for that in my reading.

[pitohui]

5. hal is wallace (in my humble opinion)

the failed tennis player who now has to fall back on having a brain... trouble is, there are even more people who have brain than there are folk who can beat him at tennis (and he is not even unique in being a person w. brain who struggles w. pot or other drugs he is suddenly just...a unit, as it were)

this is autobiography in a weird sense, hence the sense of reality even tho our universe and theirs has already diverged in the 1980s long before the book's publication

[Jim__]

6. Maybe. But, I think Hal represents more than that.

Hal is someone at the beginning phases of the disease that is at the center of the novel. Assuming, for the moment, that the guy in the beginning of the book that
hides his car and locks himself in his apartment for a week to smoke pot is Hal, then the novel, over its course, describes 3 different sets of people at different
stages of the disease. Hal and (at least some of) the young people starting out at ETA are in the beginning stages where it's still mostly enjoyable. The cross-
dressing homosexuals who are "Out There" and living through the ravages of it, and Gately and the people at the rehab house who are struggling to recover from the disease.

When we step outside of the disease, we still find events that are largely spectatorial. There's Eschaton, worthy of its own subthread, but in this perspective, a non-disease option, but not an especially good option. Eschaton, the Show, and even professional football and film as "other" options - mostly geared toward the spectator. But, maybe not so much better options. There's Marathe and Steeply, nominally controlling events, but largely just watching and talking. And even the separatist group, politically active, but currently searching desperately for a film.

Looked at from the larger perspective of the book, Hal is more than just a failed tennis player, and more than just Wallace. Hal doesn't really have a lot of options. He seems to be on the path toward the disease and one of its sad ends. But, even if he avoids that, what is there? Life as part of a spectacle or life as a spectator.

Hal is us, and his options are extremely limited.

[vixengrl]

7. I think that being a spectator, or viewing life as entertainment--

as well as being in the grips of addiction to some Substance, are both part of the unpleasant joke of the book. These behaviors are escapist. People try to escape life because it's horrible, and it's horrible in part because of all the self-absorbed escapist people messing it up, and also because we are insufferably buried in detail, such that no two people can do more than have their maps partially superimposed on the same reality. We're like Hal because we either try to efface the bluntness of our experiences in Substances or in entertainment (as he does when dusting off his videos of his dad's more outre movies--which might also be his materialistic way of trying to commune with his father's ghost), or in the apparent freak-out at the interview, where he has an inability to communicate what he wants to say, but deep inside *is* full of understanding about who and where he is.

The secondary joke is that you can't explain either joke to others--it can only be experienced because words fall short of how recursive our situation is. "Infinite Jest"--indeed! (Also, all jokes lose a little something once they are explained.)

Or anyway, after just finishing the short story collection Oblivion, I think I get a better idea of the themes he's more generally on about. His characters don't seem to see what's right in front of them, and the denseness of the style often obscures story elements from the reader, too.

[pitohui]

8. both of you have great insights

we can't explain the joke to others indeed!